The Wizard – The Crack and the Dark

“So come on now, you can’t find a solution to this, Wizard?” asked the mocking voice, with an insulting giggle just to add insult to injury. But the voice was right, for once.

“Yeah!” said the voice. There was little he could do. Clutching his stick, the only tool he had at hand, he approached the crack.

Once more he peeked through the crack. It looked to be close to noon by the direction of the light. How long had he been underground he didn’t know, but realizing that it was noon or just past noon made him notice how hungry he was. He pushed the thought away.

“Like you are trying to push me away?” he also ignored the voice.

Passing his hands over the edges of the crack, he felt the rock. It was solid, no cracks to use, nothing he could take advantage of. Just bare solid rock.

He lowered his hands in defeat.

“Oh, that is a pity, told you that something like this would happen. Now why don’t you stop wasting energy and just lay at the side of the crack and enjoy the glow and warmth that comes from it. Just lay and rest. Your robe still is nice and soft and warm. It may be filthy but it can be used still. Not exactly my kind of thing but beggars can’t be choosers…” the voice kept on droning but… he tried to ignore it. The soft sensation of the robe, the warmth of the sun coming from the crack on the wall, a crack too small for him to pass through. The side of the rock wall was just so inviting…

No, never.

“Oh, you idiot, do I have to drag you into the darkness again?”

Into the darkness? There was no choice. He peeked into the crack one more time. It looked like the cave just beyond was a circular space. He turned this way and that way trying to get a better angle, but he couldn’t see anything, just a cave floor full of pebbles and the light coming from up above.

Making a decision, he tied his stick with a strip of broken robe, making sure it was nice and secure. Then extending his hands over the rock wall, he proceeded to follow it towards the side. As he was getting away, he took one last longing look towards the crack in the wall and then moved on.

“Are you stupid? But what kind of question is that? Of course, you are, you useless idiot. First, you dedicated your life to a stupid thing that led you nowhere, and now you are just what? Following a wall? Please…” the voice droned on and on without stopping. The Wizard guessed that being inside his head it had no need to take a breath though the appearance…

“Yo, idiot Wizard! Do you really have a need to reason and logic everything and anything? I am a talking female voice inside your head, and you are trying to logic me?”

It was something to do.

“… I have to concede that this wall following is annoying,” the feminine voice said. Once again, he fell into a rhythm. Slowly walking by the wall, guiding himself with his hands so as not to lose his only guide.

The light of the crack was far gone at this point. Far behind. Though light was still filtering from somewhere, it was not pitch dark, just nearly so.

“Of course it isn’t, you have been!” said the voice cheerfully, with a crazy edge to it. Strange. “There is something that tells me that the only reason that I am here is because you just try to reason everything to find every possible angle to make sense of it all, almost as if you can control it all, or control me. You can’t. Look at yourself. The once proud mighty wizard reduced to walking in the dark like vermin just because you were so obsessed with controlling the world that the world you were trying to control to see went away from you, left you behind, and now it has sent me just to mock and belittle you.”

The voice was correct… He felt… the voice was right. He lowered his arms once again. Hunger and thirst were starting to take hold of his mind, to control him, to weaken him. The wall and the darkness appeared to be so all-encompassing, so total. The light was just so far gone.

“Yes, yes, I am your only light here, your only companion, now do the easy thing and just lay…” but then a gust of wind, fresh, with the scent of pine in it. Renewed vigor filled his limbs. He felt his cheeks flush with blood. He began to move again until he heard it. Deep echoes, an abyss yawning somewhere. Slowly he moved his right foot forward and he felt the edge of the rock, land’s end.

“Well, good to know that you can go even deeper. What are you going to do now? Eh, Wizard?”

Truth, great point. He looked around, to his right was just more blackness and bare rock he could see… but bare rock… that meant light! To his left, there it was, another crack, light was starting to fade. With his heart thumping in his chest, he tested the border of the floor and felt through his feet that there was a tiny ledge that could allow him to get to the crack. Almost blind to anything else and deaf to all but the thumping of his heart, he tried to go there.

But the voice had other plans.

“So you really want to leave me? Uh, though I made it clear already. Sorry, but you don’t seem to learn,” with that, he felt the yanking once more, getting thrown into the black abyss. As the light disappeared into the black, he couldn’t scream, he didn’t say anything, nor the voice. In silence, he fell deeper.